Categories

“Question: If one has no thoughts, no ideas, no reflections, and no mental processes - how can one have a Buddha's knowledge of everything in all its aspects?Answer: Once the false ideas no longer arise, as soon as one abstains from all of them, the true nature which exists within the core of our own being reveals itself and omniscience together with it….The Buddha-nature which is ours from the very beginning is like the sun which emerges from the clouds, or like a mirror which, when rubbed, regains its original purity and clarity. (217)”--Ho-shan Buddhist Scriptures

≈

"If
those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the
sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish
will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of
you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, andyou
will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you
will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that
poverty." –thewords
ofJesus Christ according to the Coptic
Gospel of Thomas (3)

≈

“Know thyself.” --Socrates

≈

"Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution.

It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it."

--Neils Bohr, Nobel Laureate and father of
quantum mechanics

December
is upon us, the season of gift-giving is here. As Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Chanukah,
Christmas, Kwanza , and the Winter Solstice approach, I have been thinking about
the most precious gifts I have received this year, and pondering on how to engage
in skillful gifting. I hope that the
quotes above from some heavyweights (you may have heard of them) in the fields
of spirituality and science will not scare people away – it is my goal to keep
this site as secular as possible. However, the frenzy around “gifting” this
time of year can get overwhelming, and the emphasis on creating happiness
through materialism begs for a moment of mindful contemplation of the essential
and fundamental gift we all carry inside of us, and the priceless gifts to
humanity that have come from the teachings of our most enlightened spiritual
leaders.

•••

Most days I think I have the best job on the planet. As a psychiatrist I have the opportunity,
every day, to sit with people who share with me their suffering, their joy,
their experiences, thoughts and dreams. To be sure, there are moments when
their suffering is so great that the risk of suicide fills me with worry and
stress, but fortunately these moments are relatively rare and they pass away,
like all phenomena. There are many days when I am the armchair traveler, seeing
and experiencing more of the world than I ever could by myself, and the ride
can be thrilling, inspiring, and humbling. And on the days when a client has a
major insight, experiences a breakthrough, or “wakes up” --their mind no longer
clouded by the delusions, “false ideas, thoughts and mental processes”
described in the quote from the Ho-shan Buddhist Scriptures-- I am filled with
tremendous gratitude. In those moments I
am keenly aware of the transformative power that comes from knowing oneself.

One of the pearls of twelve-step recovery is that happiness is an inside job. It does not come from all the external things
we try to acquire, hold onto, desire, crave, or fantasize about. A new relationship, a new car, finally
becoming a homeowner, finishing college, losing 10 pounds, winning the lottery
– all these things bring moments of happiness that rise and fall, and eventually
pass away. A more lasting happiness is
achieved when the change that happens is internal to us. A spiritual change. By paying attention in
meditation, we learn how to see ourselves and the world more clearly. We discover that long held “truths” – about
ourselves, others, life – may not be true.
We begin to see life as it really is.
And we do this not by distracting ourselves from the problems we face,
but by looking at them square in the eye, leaning into sometimes very painful
feelings and experiences, and from the crucible of that experience (to borrow
from Jon Kabat-Zinn), from all that pressure and heat, a new awareness is created,
like a diamond from black coal. As Neils
Bohr observed, the solution to a problem is frequently revealed when we pay
attention and look closely at that problem.
Psychotherapy facilitates this process, just as meditation does. Combine
the two and then “you’re really cooking with gas”, as my father used to say. I have observed that my patients who combine
the two tend to make great progress.

The keys to the kingdom of a lasting peace and happiness are
found within us, and we unlock our bound and constricted experience of life by
knowing ourselves fully, and by changing our thinking. Many of my patients come to therapy thinking
of themselves as somehow defective, missing something, lacking an essential
part which, if acquired, will “fix” them.
I recently saw the wonderful film “Hugo”, from the book The Invention of Hugo Cabretby Brian Selznick, in which the main character, a plucky orphaned
boy named Hugo, says: “I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You
know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and types
of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to
be here for some reason, too (p. 378).” Rather than allow all of the tragedies which have befallen
him to make him feel less than, broken, or superfluous, he is able to hold onto
a view of himself as being just as he should be in the grand scheme of the
universe.

In my
early days as a therapist, I thought it was my job to “fix” people, revealing
an underlying false belief that (1) the patient was broken and (2) the solution
resided in me. And of course it was my
belief in my own broken-ness, my own low self esteem, that needed the boost I
thought would come from healing others.
I could prove to the world (and myself) that I was worth something. I based my own happiness and self-regard on
my success at getting others to change. Talk about false ideas,
thoughts and mental processes! What a recipe
for disaster! Or burnout, which is what happened to me.

The
solution turned out to be better than anything I could have hoped for. After reaching my own personal hell, from the
heat and pressure of that crucible, sprang the gift of desperation. I needed that desperation to motivate me to
try something different. I had to admit
to myself that my old ways of thinking about myself and relating with the world
were not serving me well; they were only bringing me more suffering. I was desperate enough to let go of old
thinking, to surrender my old defenses.

A
friend who had begun meditating brought me to an insight meditation group. The talk that night was about Buddha nature
-- the belief that within each of us resides our true nature which is closer to
our true self, as perfect and as capable of enlightenment as any Buddha. That the version of self I was most familiar
with was a false self, filled with delusion and false ideas about just about
everything. I heard that we wrap our life experiences around us as we
grow. We add layer upon layer of
external events and phenomena --that have nothing to do with the original
self-- cloaking ourselves in experiences and stories which become so tightly
associated with “us” that we come to believe they are “us”. They become our identities, and we cling to
them, and cherish them, and suffer because of them. We feel threatened when our view of ourselves
is challenged by others. We feel empty
and unsatisfied if we have had empty and unsatisfying experiences. We mistake our experiences for ourselves, and
forget about the perfect being which has been waiting, patiently, under all
those layers for all these years.

This
was a revelation. It felt true. It
resonated with something deep in my body which said “Yes! This feels right! Pay
attention!” It sparked hope. For
Buddhists, an everlasting happiness, nirvana, can be achieved by knowing
oneself. By seeing the true or ‘Buddha
nature’ of self we see that we are actually one with all perfect beings. The layers of identity, the boundaries of
self, that keep us separated from one another fall away. And there is a
suggested eightfold path that guides us in this process. That the greatest teachers and spiritual
leaders of humanity, separated by centuries and continents, arrived at similar
conclusions about the path to lasting happiness is no coincidence, in my
opinion. Rick Hanson says this is his
book The Buddha’s Brain:

“…your true nature is both a refuge and a resource for the
sometimes difficult work of psychological growth and spiritual practice. It’s a remarkable fact that the people who
have gone the very deepest into the mind – the sages and saints of every
religious tradition – all say essentially the same thing: your fundamental
nature is pure, conscious, peaceful, radiant, loving, and wise, and it is joined
in mysterious ways with the ultimate underpinnings of reality, by whatever name
we give That. Although your true nature
may be hidden momentarily by stress and worry, anger and unfulfilled longings,
it still continues to exist. Knowing
this can be a great comfort.

On the other hand working with the mind and body to encourage
the development of what is wholesome – and the uprooting of what’s not – is central
to every path of psychological and spiritual development. Even if practice is a matter of ‘removing the
obscurations’ to true nature – to borrow a phrase from Tibetan Buddhism – the clearing
of these is a progressive process of training, purification, and transformation. Paradoxically it takes time to become who we
already are.”

Or, as
a patient of mine recently said in a moment of insight, “It takes a lot of work
just to be.”

This
revelation about our true nature and the path to happiness has been the
greatest gift and comfort in my life-- a balm to my soul. And mindfulness meditation has been the tool
which has allowed me to know myself. I know longer see myself or my patients as
broken. My job now is not to fix people,
but to shine a light on the path that leads patients back home to themselves,
to re-discover their true self and develop a sense of compassion and
forgiveness for their experiences, and to begin to let go of their stories. My job as guide frequently includes being a
gently reassuring and encouraging presence as patients face down some long-held
fears. It is easier to stare into the
abyss if you have someone by your side.

So as
you contemplate your gift list this year, remember that you already possess the
greatest gift. It’s been hiding inside
you all along. And my gift to you is my heartfelt wish that you find your way
home to your true nature, to freedom, to living with ease, and to lasting happiness.